Lion's Lynx (Veteran Shifters 2)

He leaned back, looking bereft. “Do you want to stop?”

The answer was no, of course…but. Did he mean to strip down right now? “I—I’m not sure,” she said. “Did you want to—out here? In the open?”

Lynn had spent a lot of time outdoors over the years, but she’d never had sex in the forest. Though, to be fair, she hadn’t had too much in the way of sex overall.

“There’s no one around,” he said. “And we just shifted without worrying about anyone coming across us.”

That was true. And having some poor hiker discover a full-grown male lion in the Montana wilderness would be worse than someone accidentally catching a glimpse of them with their clothes off. Not that either was likely to happen, because Lynn hadn’t seen, heard, or scented anybody anywhere nearby.

“If you want to stop, we’ll stop,” he said. “But Lynn…” He kissed her hotly, biting softly at her lip. “If you don’t want to stop, I promise you that this will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.”

“You’re so sure of your prowess?” she managed, around a breathless gasp.

“Mmm,” he said, “yes.” A grin against her mouth. “But I meant, if this is how it feels just to kiss you, I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like to be inside you.”

To be inside you.

Suddenly, that was all Lynn could think about. The two of them, naked here on this forest floor, and Ken deep inside her. Her inner muscles contracted at the thought, sending a wave of pleasure through her body—like a preview, a tantalizing taste of what was to come.

“Yes,” she said.

His eyes lit. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, and found herself caught up in a fiery kiss. Ken’s arms tightened around her, pulling her close, and Lynn panted into his mouth.

His hands lost no time in slipping under her shirt again, and Lynn had to tug herself away, laughing, to say, “That isn’t going to work, let me do it.”

Ken simply nodded, his eyes fixed on her face. Lynn felt her laughter fade away as she remembered what he’d said about how beautiful she was, laughing.

Their eyes locked for a long minute, and then Lynn busied herself with unbuttoning her shirt and tugging it off, followed by her sports bra—which involved some ungainly contorting.

Those few minutes reminded her that she was displaying her body to a man for the first time in…years. Literally years. Her movements slowed. She snuck a glance at Ken, to see if he was reacting at all to the extra pounds she carried around her middle, the signs of age. Her skin wasn’t as taut as it had been once, her breasts weren’t as firm, and her weight—

Well, she mostly didn’t care about her weight, because she was fit enough to hike miles and miles through the Glacier forests every day, so what did it matter? But she’d always been stocky, and now that she was over forty, she’d settled into…thick. It wasn’t the most attractive body type to men, she knew.

And yeesh, when was the last time she’d shaved her legs?

She felt herself blushing again, and this time it wasn’t because she felt flattered. She was holding her shirt in front of her torso, she realized, and in a minute she was going to have to let it go, or it would look odd, and Ken would see—

Ken reached out and put his hand over hers. “Lynn.” His voice was soft. “What’s wrong?”

Lynn shook her head. “Nothing.” This was silly. She steeled herself to set the shirt aside and let him see her, wrinkles and all. There was no reason it should be this hard.

“Lynn, I think you’re beautiful,” Ken said. Lynn glanced up, and he was watching her. As she met his eyes, his gaze deliberately flickered down, tracing the curves of her breasts and the parts of her stomach that were visible around the shirt. “Not just your face. Your body is gorgeous.”

Lynn couldn’t help it: she snorted.

“You don’t believe me?” Ken raised his eyebrows. “I think I’m hurt.”

“Look,” Lynn said, “you don’t have to flatter me. I know what I look like. I’m not a teenager. I’m a forty-five-year-old woman, I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with the fact that I’m not some willowy model.”

“I’ve never been that into skinny women,” Ken said thoughtfully. “There’s something about curves…you know, when I first saw you in Cal’s office, well. I told you that you caught my attention like no woman ever has. And part of that was your face—” He reached out and traced a finger down her cheek. It strayed over to linger on her top lip, then the bottom one. He ended by cupping her chin.

The touch made her shiver, but even more than that, the look in his eyes. There was no question that he thought she was beautiful. She could see it, that appreciation, all over his face.

“But,” he continued, “part of that was your body. You were just wearing jeans and hiking boots and a loose shirt—I could tell you weren’t trying to show it off, that you hadn’t dressed to look sexy. But there was no way you could hide those curves. And I wanted to get you out of those clothes right there, and see all of that gorgeous body.”

His hand moved from her chin to her shoulder. Warm fingers traced her collarbone, then down her chest until they hit the bunched cloth of the shirt she was holding. “I’d love it,” he said, his voice dropping what seemed like a full octave, “if I could see it now.”